You won't need to go to Italy any more to get a close-up view of Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece The Last Supper:  you can now get an intimate look at it through a 16-billion-pixel image that has been posted on the internet.

The painting, which is displayed in Milan's Church of Santa Maria dell Grazie, was made accessible through a website on Saturday — the image is 1,600 times more detailed than images taken with a typical digital camera, which have 10 million pixels.

"You can see how Leonardo made the cups transparent, something you can't ordinarily see," said curator Alberto Artioli. "You can also note the state of degradation the painting is in."

The high resolution image will allow viewers to examine details as if they were a few centimetres from the painting, which measures 4.6 metres by 8.8 metres (15 by 29 feet).

Artioli said the project has two purposes: to allow art-lovers to study the masterpiece from home and to establish an historical view of the painting in 2007, so future generations can compare how it has changed or degraded.

The Last Supper, completed in 1498, was painstakingly restored in 1999, as experts removed 500 years of dirt. Leonardo had experimented with the way he painted but that meant the paint did not cleave to the surface, subjecting it to more wear.

"Over the years it has been subjected to bombardments; [the church] was once used as a stall by Napoleon," Artioli said.

Since then, officials have made efforts to protect it by limiting visits to the church.

Twenty-five visitors are admitted every 15 minutes to see the painting, located in the back hall of the dining area of the church, and they must also pass through a filtration system to help reduce the work's exposure to dust and pollutants.

About 350,000 people a year pass through the church to view the painting.

With files from the Associated Press